Juggling Dynamite

A recent survey from Bank of America Merrill Lynch reinforces my comments (see:  Captive money is not ‘smart’ for investors) about the fee-maximizing bias of financial firms to have client capital fully allocated to risky assets at all times:  last month found that cash levels were the highest levels since November 2001 at 5.8% of portfolios:

“Globally, sentiment remains weak. Global asset allocators are holding the highest average cash balance since November 2001, while equity allocations have dropped to four-year lows,” BAML said in a note.

So 94.2% of client savings allocated to risky assets at extreme valuations is considered defensive.  This is why so few people are able to buy low in any meaningful way once bear markets arrive.  Buy with what?  What risk management?  It’s a joke, but not funny.  See:  Forget the stock rally, investors are holding cash.

Foreboding blast from the past in this 1998 testimony. If only the politicians had listened, we would not be back full circle to today’s ongoing 1930’s style financial crisis. Instead under Greenspan’s hubris and leadership at the Federal Reserve, policymakers proceeded with the official eradication of Glass-Steagall under Clinton in 1999.

Today we have same players, same incentives, same behaviors and voila:  same harm and cost to society ongoing.  And right on script, we we have the status quo (including Clinton 2.0) insisting that it’s too late and banks too opaque, to go back to the critically needed division between investment sales and savings deposits.  But this is precisely why we must.

Pam Martens worked on Wall Street for 21 years and was an activist against the growing corruption. In this video she testifies before the Federal Reserve on June 26, 1998 as to why it would deliver a devastating blow to the U.S. financial system to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act. Seated to her left in this video is Galen Sherwin, then President of the NYC-National Organization for Women, who testified against Wall Street’s private justice system which, then and now, prevents both customer and employee claims from being heard in the Nation’s court system, delivering further impunity to Wall Street’s crimes.

For more from our series on the systemic corruption that led to the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, the depression era legislation that kept the U.S. financial system safe for 66 years, visit www.WallStreetOnParade.com and put “Glass-Steagall” in the search box. Here is a direct video link.

Danielle was the second guest with Jim Goddard on This Week in Money, talking about recent developments in the world economy and markets.  You can listen to an audio clip of the segment here by advancing the playbar to 20:00.